Living Room Songs

by Ólafur Arnalds

Icelandic contemporary composer Ólafur Arnalds created and released a new song, one per day for a whole week during the month of October 2011. The songs were recorded and filmed live in the living room of his Reykjavik apartment and released instantly for free as streamed videos and mp3 downloads.

Living Room Songs has now also be released on CD, Vinyl, Special Edition CD/DVD (including a film about the whole week) and as High Quality Downloads via Erased Tapes Records.

Day 1: Fyrsta

The song is called "Fyrsta", which means "First". Because it is the first song of the series, but also because this piano theme was the first thing i managed to write while temporarily living in Los Angeles after weeks of severe creative block while trying to adjust to a new and strange place.

Day 4: Tomorrow's Song

Those who attended one of the Berlin dates of Ólafur's improvisational solo-tour may recognize this theme. It is built around an idea that was improvised live in Berlin, polished a little bit and now recorded.

Day 5: Ágúst

This is an idea from last August, it had lots of electronics in it and a big arrangement. But I had been struggling with it for a while and was never really happy with it. While looking for ideas for Day 5 I decided to go back to the basic idea - the way it was before i piled all this stuff on it, and i found this lovely violin melody beneath it all. I added the viola for some movement and made a new structure, and here we are! Much happier now..

Day 7: This Place is a Shelter

This is the last installment of Ólafur Arnalds' Living Room Songs series. I decided to throw a little 'wrap party' to celebrate the end of the series and we shot this there. "This place is a shelter" refers to my home, to which i have invited you all with this series. I am away much of the time and what keeps me going is knowing that I'll always have 'home' to come back to.